I'll eat up all your crackers and your licorice

100 Words about Baseball

Why I Love Baseball

There is no clock
90 feet between bases is genius
There are secret signs
Hanging curveballs are sexy
Numbers are magic: 755, 56, 7, 61, 1.12
Tinker to Evers to Chance
Ivy at Wrigley
The Green Monster
The suicide squeeze
Cracker Jack
Walt Whitman liked it
Jackie Robinson and Pee-Wee Reese
It just feels American
The seventh-inning stretch
Superstition
Guys in tight pants
Bull Durham
Centerfield
There’s no crying in baseball
Cooperstown
A great play at the plate
Chatter
Pepper
High socks
Tradition
Spring training
Keeping score
The rubber game
The infield fly rule
162 chances

Become a Fan

Travel

If you aren't familiar with 29E, it's one of the more well-known bits of customer complaints in the airline industry. Information about Complaint Zero and it's validity can be found HERE and the letter itself, complete with illustrations can be found HERE (that second one is a PDF).

One of the great things about having worked with Fred, our CEO, for so long is that we have a very easy working relationship and friendship. How that plays out is that he says and does stuff, some of it crazy, and I give him a really hard time about it. When we planned this first trip to Singapore, he had very definite ideas about the seats we should choose on the plane and pointed them out on a seat map. He and Judith (another owner in the firm), were going to sit in the center aisle and Kamen (co-worker) and I would each sit on the window sides. He said these seats were great because of the configuration. As I looked at the seat map, I had my doubts. “But…these seats are right next to the bathrooms!” How could that possibly be a good thing??

Since then, I teased, mocked and faux-complained with varying degrees of intensity. I even got Kamen in on it. “You’ll see,” Fred would say.

Well, I see. The other nice thing about our relationship is that I have no qualms whatsoever about saying those three little words. You were right. He WAS right, as he so often is. This seat is awesome. First of all, it is next to the lavatory, but the lav is configured in such a way that the entrance is 2 seat pods in front of me and faces the front of the plane, so I can’t see it. There’s also a curtain in the aisle 1 seat pod ahead, so there’s no light leakage from people going in and out. And there are 6 lavatories on the plane, so with 100 passengers, each lav gets very little traffic. Because it’s a bulkhead, there’s no seat in front of me, which gives me the extra space. Other rows have an entertainment screen, a foot well on one side so that you have a place to stretch out in flatbed mode, and a small cubby for stowing items during flight. Instead of a foot well, my seat has a fold-down bench of sorts. When I’m seated, I can rest my feet on it, and in flatbed mode, I have much more freedom to turn over and angle my body any way I want because there’s no confining foot well.

Another benefit is that I can have guests. After I woke up from my nap (2 hours of sleep – this after 7 hours of sleep at the beginning of the flight), Fred came over and sat on the bench and we talked and had a little snack together with the tray table unfolded between us. Then Judith woke up and came over and sat on the arm rest for a minute, but given how wide the seat is, I told her to just slide in next to me, so she did. So there we were, all three of us sitting and taking together in my seat pod. It was just like we were gathered around a little café table, except for the 39,000 feet in the air part.

And eventually I promise I'll blog about Singapore itself, not just the flight there. (Though I do believe that, given the length of the flight itself, 2 posts are justified. Barely.)

It’s been 8 hours, 30 minutes since we departed Newark and this already qualifies as the longest flight of my adult life (probably my whole life - I don't know the length of the segments between the US and the Phillipines in 1972 or Guam and the US in 1974). The previous record was held by JFK-CDG, and this is already an hour over that. Amazingly, we aren’t quite half way to Singapore yet—we still have more time in the air than we’ve already spent!

As the Captain greeted us prior to pushback from gate 65, I got a big surprise. I knew the flight returning from Singapore to Newark took a “great circle” route that traveled over China, toward the North Pole and then south over Greenland to the US east coast. I expected the flight to Singapore took a similar path, but as the Captain made his announcements, I realized I was quite wrong! We instead flew east over the Atlantic, crossing over Europe. We just flew over Odessa in the Ukraine and are now heading out over the Black Sea as we angle toward the Middle East. We’ll overfly eastern Turkey, skim Armenia and Azerbaijan, cross Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India before heading over the Indian Ocean. So yay for circumnavigation of the globe! A first for me!! (The funny thing is that in the car on the way to the airport, I said that I wish I were making one of the trips that combined visits to the client in Singapore and the UK so that I could go around the world. Little did I know.) I guess it makes sense, though—on a flight this long, you’d really want a tailwind to help. This one really pushes the range of any aircraft. (Which reminds me that I wanted to look up the actual range of this aircraft...or maybe I really don't need to know that information!)

I already feel like I’ve been traveling a long time, and that’s probably because I have been! We left home at 10:30am EST this morning in order to drive to northern NJ for an afternoon meeting with the client. That ended at 5:00 and we made the 45-minute drive to the airport and proceeded to wait…and wait for our 11:00pm departure. That puts me at about 20 hours on the road so far.

As we waited for our flight, I could feel myself getting…I wasn’t sure what it was at first. I just felt slightly agitated. As the feeling grew I realized I was anxious. What? I travel all the time, and I love it. I love everything about it, from people watching at the airport to studying the planes themselves to experiencing the wonder of a metal contraption weighing hundreds of thousands of pounds floating away from where you were and depositing you somewhere entirely different. But here I was sitting in the airline club lounge feeling my heart beat a little faster. Sometimes I get a little nervous for transoceanic flights—the idea of flying over all that really deep water gets to me. That’s perhaps my one true phobia—fear of deep water. But this was more than that. It was the time on the plane. 19 hours. Would I be able to sleep? I’m a chronically bad plane sleeper, even on cushy international flights where I have a flatbed seat. Would I get a headache from tossing and turning? What if my ears started hurting? Would I survive 19 hours with (gasp!)…no internet???

So I fidgeted and paced (in my fuzzy slippers—when it’s as overly air-conditioned as that club was, I have no shame about whatever survival tactics I have to resort to). I chit-chatted. I picked at some cheese and crackers, but in my body, anxiety and appetite are bitter enemies and when the former arrives, the latter makes a hasty, indignant retreat. I went to the newsstand and bought a paperback (Deliver Us From Evil by David Baldacci) and some snacks for the trip. I took photos of the massive jet at our gate and the distant New York skyline, the Empire State Building aglow just over the wing of the plane.

Finally, I remembered something the divorce process has taught me—when you talk about what’s going on with you, people are able to support you and cheer you on. So I talked, and ended up in a text conversation with a good friend who is only too familiar with US-to-Asia travel. It wasn’t much, just a handful of back-and-forth texts, but it reminded me of the power of feeling not just listened to but heard. In a matter of minutes I was able to uncover the connections between several threads of my life and how, in combination with the flight, they added up to this odd bundle of nerves. I was feeling silly and sheepish, but this friend’s kind words reminded me of how utterly normal my feelings were. Sometimes I don’t know what I ever did to deserve such wonderful friends. It did a lot to soothe my frayed nerves, though they weren’t completely calmed—I was still missing Alex terribly, and I was still worrying about a dear friend who was quite sick. And the flight was still 19 hours long.

I have to admit that, if you’re going to fly this far, this is the way to do it. Singapore Airlines offers the only nonstop service from the New York area to Singapore and at just under 19 hours (or 17.5 hours with a really good tailwind), it is the longest single flight in operation in the world. The nonstop factor gives them a tremendous market advantage for business travelers who desperately want to minimize connections on long-haul trips. I know that sounds like a prima donna attitude, but if you’ve never done long-haul travel spending hours on a plane and crossing multiple time zones and then had to deplane and not just stay awake but be functional and conduct business, it’s hard to explain. It really does take a physical toll. But then Singapore Airlines did something to amp up their advantage. They converted several Airbus A340-500 series jets to an all-business class configuration. Instead of the typical first/business and coach class configuration which would seat about 300-330 people, this flight offers only 100 seats. But the seats are something else: Each one is 30 inches wide. To put this in perspective, I am a thin person, yes, but earlier I was sitting with my laptop on the seat between me and the armrest to my left and to my right there was still a good 5 inches of space between my hip and the armrest.

I’m in a bulkhead seat, which I usually don’t like, but in this case it is extra nice. The other seats have a foot well for stretching out when you have the seat in flatbed mode, but the bulkhead seats have a wide open area so you can stretch out any way you want. Each seat offers aisle access, so no climbing over anyone (or being climbed over) to get up and stretch.

But back to me and my anxiety…

I settled into my “pod” and shortly after takeoff I decided to curl up in my rather large seat and snooze until we reached cruising altitude and I could get up and figure out the flatbed operation. But I didn’t have to wait – as soon as one of the flight attendants saw me getting positioned for a nap, she came over and offered to assist me with the bed. So here I was, 10 minutes into the flight, and the opportunity to sleep was right there. I just had to take it. Funny, that’s how my life seems to be going lately. So I laid down, adjusted the blanket, curled up on my side and quieted my mind by just thinking one thought. And guess what? I didn't expect it, but it worked. I had some typical shifting and getting comfortable moments, but I slept until 6:30am EST…about 7 hours. It wasn’t the most comfortable sleep of my life, but 7 hours of sleep on a plane is unheard of for me, so you’ll hear no complaints from seat 19K.

After waking up and standing to stretch, my flight attendant was back immediately to convert my bed back into a seat and offer me something to eat. I nibbled a little at a chicken salad sandwich, went across the aisle to visit with my colleagues (the ones who were awake, anyway), watched the flight monitor and wrote all this. Another flight attendant just came over and said “You have been working very intently—would you like me to get you something to eat?” Somehow, that little bit of a compliment strikes me as very funny. Now I think I’ll take a stroll up and down the aisle a bit, after which they will surely treat me as if I just ran a marathon, patting me on the back and remaking my bed so I can get some much needed sleep.

Having my eardrums burst. Occasionally when flying over the ocean I get a little antsy thinking about being over all that water, which is really has more to do with my fear of very deep water than any fear associated with flying.

2. Have you ever had a provider lose your luggage? If so, how long did it take for them to find it?

Oh goodness yes. Well, to be precised, I've had it mishandled many times, probably 8-10 in all. I once had a bag that was "lost" on a trip from Albany to Huntsville and Northwest couldn't locate it before my trip ended. When I got to Huntsville to check in for my flight home, I asked the gate agent for an update (yet again) and like everyone else, she asked for a description. When I provided one she said, "Wait just a minute," opened a door behind her and there was my suitcase. It had made it after all and was probably there te whole time!

I also had a flight on Christmas Day one year, and it happened to be the day after Richard Reid (aka the shoe bomber) was arrested. I expected heavier security, so we got there 2 hours early for our flight to Orlando. We were flying first class, so our luggage was all priority tagged. We had a direct flight to Orlando, so there were no tricky or short connections. And yet one item never made it on the plane. I swear, Philadelphia has the worst baggage handling, ever.

3. Where would you prefer to sit on an airplane: by the window, the aisle or in the center?

In theory I prefer a window seat, but in practice, it depends on the plane and the length of the flight. My criteria for deciding is quite intricate. For instance:

Shorter flights on smaller planes when I'm tired: window seat so I can lean against the interior wall and pretend to sleep. (I often have trouble sleeping on planes.)Longer flights on smaller planes when I have work to do: aisle seat so that I can work and get up to stretch or go to the lavatory a little more easily.Red-eye flights in coach: aisle seat because I know I won't get any sleep, so at least I'll be able to get up and move around. Red-eye flights in first class: window seat (getting out of the row past the aisle seatmate is easier)International flights in coach: aisle seat, preferably in the center section, close to the front of the coach cabin so that I can get my dinner service fast and then try to sleep.International flights in first class: Greatly depends on the cabin configuration and if I'm alone or with someone. On Delta flights with their new "pod" seats, I prefer an even-numbered row, either 2 or 4 on either side (it's a 1x2x1 configuration with every seat having aisle access). It really does make a difference, I swear.Southwest: Exit row on the side of the plane that has just one exit row, aisle or window.

You are an outgoing, friendly, and likable person. You enjoy being in the middle of the action. You trust others freely. You enjoy cooperating and collaborating with people from all walks of life.

While no one likes being in the middle seat, you're happy to make the best of it. Your positive outlook creates a lot of stability and security... both for yourself and for those around you.

I have a middle seat on a couple of flights coming up, and I'll definitely be making the best of it.

5. If you had to book a flight this evening, which airline would you prefer to fly with?

Again, it depends. I really like Southwest because they have such excellent service and I find them to be very reliable. However, I have good status now with Delta. I'm really looking forward to next Friday's flight on Singapore Airlines, though. (Yes, it's 19 hours, but it's a 100-seat, all-business class flight, so I expect excellent service.)

Because I'm tired of talking about the divorce and it seems like almost everything else going on is either privileged information or simply not blog-appropriate, I thought I'd take the safe route and do a Friday meme from The Daily Meme. Yes, I already did a meme this week, but it was one that I'd started as a draft a long time ago. Plus I've adopted what I think will become known as the Stinky Blogging Convention, a ingenious set of blogging rules devised by my BFF, whose name is most assuredly not Stinky. So really, I can do whatever I want. (Note - I always could, but now I do so feeling like I'm "keeping to the code.")

And now because there's still lunch to be made, on with the blogging...

Do you have any travel planned for 2011? Where/when and why?

photo via http://www.faqs.org/photo-dict/phrase/8/airplane.html

Do I have any travel planned??? In the words of the great David Addison, do bears bear? Do bees be? Let's just take a quick peek at my (paper) calendar for a minute. I'll be including work travel here, and some people would say that doesn't count, but I bet they don't travel to the places my work takes me! And I'm only going to go through the next few months.

February

Singapore (work) It bears mentioning that the flight I'll be taking from Newark to Singapore on Singapore Air is the longest nonstop flight in existence, clocking in at 18 hours, 45 minutes. That is a LONG time to be on one plane.

Palm Springs, CA (work...well, workish)TED 2011. This will be my fourth year at what Fast Company calls "The New Harvard." It's the most intellectually stimulating thing I've ever experienced. Also the most extroverted, so it usually leaves me completely shredded, but in a good way. Mostly.

March

Austin (work)After years of threatening, I'm finally going to South by Southwest (SXSWInteractive)! I'm going to finally get to meet some dear friends from inside my computer and see a couple I've already met but haven't seen in ages. It's going to be GREAT.

NYC (workish)The entire firm is going on a Friday to see the Broadway musical "Memphis" and the owners/future owners are staying for the weekend. We'll probably see another show while we're there, have brunch, and have some downtime before heading back home on the train at the end of the weekend.

I do have one other trip planned for March, but I'm light on detail for that one right now.

April

Atlanta (work)Every year we attend a conference in Atlanta and it's always held at the Hotel Intercontinental in Buckhead. It's really a tradition now, and when I go there, I feel like I'm at home. The rooms are wonderful and the beds are perhaps the most comfortable I've slept on, ever. Yes, even more comfortable than the highly touted Westin "Heavenly Bed." I'm also going to the Atlanta Braves home opener while I'm in town. (I always try to work in a baseball game if I'm in a town where it's a possibility, and the added bonus of this being my team and it being the home opener makes it extra special.)

Disney World (play)3 days after arriving home from Atlanta, I leave for Disney for a trip with a lot of moving parts that promises a ton of fun. Alex is extra excited because Analise, our home-life coordinator (aka, our childcare person who is paid by my firm so that I can do the amount of work travel I do and still maintain a sane, balanced life for Alex) is coming with us.

Singapore (work)After one full day at home from Disney, I leave AGAIN for Singapore. Are we tired yet? I'll have a lot of frequent flyer miles by the end of April--I just have to survive to use them!

May

NYC (work)I'll be attending a conference and I also plan on getting together with a great friend while I'm there.

Singapore (work)Last trip to Singapore, or at least the last one I have planned. I'm trying to figure out a short excursion on my own time (and dime) so that I can cross the equator, since Singapore is roughly 80 miles from the equator. Seems a shame to not do that, right?

So that's it for the confirmed travel. I have a few loose ideas for other travel beyond May, but nothing set in stone yet. I do know for certain that I'll be doing the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in October, and believe me, Dear Reader, you will hear plenty about that in the coming months.

Now that I've written this all out, I somehow have the urge to go get back in bed, but Jillian Michaels awaits...

I arrived today in Aberdeen, Scotland for a few days of work (after which I'm on to a few days in Paris - w00t!). Our little group of three went out for some lunch and as we walked out of the pub to return to the hotel, strains of something familiar hit my ears. I could just barely make it out - is was so indistinct that I wasn't sure which direction the sound was coming from, or that I was even hearing it at all. (I have a tendency to hear phantom rings, so other phantom noises surely aren't that far off.) It sounded like an electric guitar, but was I really hearing what I thought I was hearing? As we walked through a courtyard and onto the main street, the sound became not simply clearer, but unmistakable. There I was, on Union Street on a gray day in Scotland, listening to a street performance of a song that made me grin from ear to ear.

The man was playing "Sweet Home Alabama." They might as well have rolled out a red carpet, because I felt totally, cosmically welcomed.

In 30 hours I leave for a work event in Aberdeen, Scotland. Thanks to some excellent sleuthing by our crack travel person, the best fare was found through Paris and since it's no more expensive to stay over in Paris a few days than to go straight home (cheaper, actually), I'm staying a few days.

It's been a couple of years since my last trip to Europe, and my one day in Paris. If you read the part about the Paris day trip, you'll see that it was short and that the only food I consumed while on the Continent was a single Tic-Tac, which did not stay with me for long. I'm not sure what I regret more - having so little time (particularly at the Louvre) or being unable to eat a single bite of French food. Let me go on record now as intending to correct both of those tragedies.

In preparation for this trip, I got a phrase book and accompanying CDs and I've been practicing my French.

Aside from their practical use, these CDs have provided their fair share of amusement. The first time Alex was in the car as I listened, he was terribly puzzled, exclaiming "What IS that?" I told him and he seemed satisfied. I guess the ridiculousness of what he was hearing was too much for his 7-year-old brain to bear, because a few minutes later he asked, "What IS that?" again.

Before going on I should explain that Alex loves to watch "Super Mario Galaxy" tutorial and game play videos people post to YouTube. In the game, when your character dies, the words "you lose" appear on screen. Because he watches videos from people around the world, he's seen this phrase in several languages. Anyhow...the turning point in Alex's acceptance of the language CDs was when the "Emergencies" track began. On of the phrases was "je suis perdu" which means "I'm lost." Alex immediately recognized the word and from that point on he's listened attentively and recited many of the words and phrases along with me. He even greeted Joe with a hearty "Commet allez-vous?" ("How are you?")

There is one thing that puzzles me about these CDs, though. Logic dictates that anyone purchasing such a CD is unfamiliar with the language it covers. It isn't a big leap to assume that the purchaser is visiting a new, unfamiliar place where the language on the CD is spoken. Makes perfect sense, right? So I'm going about my merry business of stumbling through phrases when the phrase "Can you recommend a babysitter?" came up.

Excusez-moi???

What kind of person goes to France with little to no French language skills,and asks a person who is undoubtedly a stranger (one who speaks little to no English, apparently) to recommend yet another stranger to watch their offspring?? I'd tell you what kind of person does that, but my phrase book doesn't cover "stark-raving lunatic."

And now my last load of laundry is done and it's time to get some sleep.

Question 1If I leave Aspen traveling east at 350 miles per hour, making a 55 minute stop in Denver, then continuing east at 400 miles per hour to Washington, DC by midnight, at what time will my luggage arrive?

a) midnightb) roughly 12:15 a.m., depending on how fast the ground crew is at Dullesc) noon-2pm the next day

I suppose I don't have to tell you the correct answer is c). My luggage never even left Aspen, despite the fact that I checked in over an hour prior to my flight.

Question 2Assuming the same conditions as described in Question 1, at what time did my thrice-confirmed driver arrive to collect me at Dulles?

a) roughly 11:40 because he wanted to be there in case I got in earlyb) midnightc) this is a trick question because he never showed up

'nuff said.

Question 3How long did I have to wait for a cab at the airport?a) 5 minutesb) 15 minutesc) 30 minutes

I was in San Jose this week for an NTL Human Interaction Laboratory. Awesome - one of the best things I've ever done. A lot to think about and write, but also a lot I can't really share or even put into words.

Two weeks ago I spent 8 hours of my Friday night in the Cincinnati airport waiting for a long-delayed flight to Columbia, SC. This Friday night I'm spending 6 hours in San Francisco International waiting for my 10pm red-eye home. I have:

Eaten some delicious lentil soup. Very. Slowly.

Read two magazines.

Read about 50 pages in one book and 20 in another.

Downloaded this week's episode of "The Office" while doing the above three.

Watched "The Office."

Caught up on my feeds.

Eaten 4 butter rum Life Savers and half a small bag of honey roasted cashews.

2.5 hours to go until takeoff. If there is anything right about this universe, I will be able to sleep on the flight.

Updated to add:Right now I'm surfing and listening to my iPod.
Random Guy walked up to me and asked if there was wifi available in the
airport. I assume there is and said as much, adding that I wasn't using
it since I had a Sprint card (tapping the part of the card that sticks out of my laptop). He continued:

Random Guy: But are you accessing the internet?
Me: Yes.
Random Guy: Well, you are using wifi, then. (he might as well have patted me on the head when he said it)
*pause*
Me: No, I'm accessing the internet via Sprint's EVDO mobile broadband network.
Random Guy: Oh, satellites. Cool.
Me: I'm sure wifi is available, though.